US teen allowed insanity plea in ‘Slender Man’ stabbing case

Both teens asserted insanity defenses and said they had wanted to please Slender Man — a sinister internet meme often inserted into the background of ominous black-and-white photos — so that he would not hurt their families

A US teen charged with stabbing a classmate in an attack to appease a fictitious internet character won’t face jail after reaching a deal with prosecutors, her attorney said Friday.

Morgan Geyser, 15, will plead guilty as charged to the 2014 stabbing of her friend Payton Leutner in the so-called “Slender Man” case that garnered widespread national attention and was turned into a TV documentary.

“She will be held in a mental facility and treated until doctors deem her well enough to be released,” her lawyer Donna Kuchler told AFP.

The move effectively closes the case following a similar deal by her co-defendant Anissa Weier.

The pair were 12 when they stabbed Leutner, who survived the attack, 19 times at a park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a suburb of the Midwestern city of Milwaukee.

A bicyclist found Leutner and helped her get to a hospital.

Both teens asserted insanity defenses and said they had wanted to please Slender Man — a sinister internet meme often inserted into the background of ominous black-and-white photos — so that he would not hurt their families.

During her court hearing Friday, a bespectacled Geyser stared blankly ahead, mouth agape. She is due to enter her guilty plea next week.

“I’ll order then that Ms Geyser be returned to where she is residing,” Judge Michael Bohren said after being presented the plea agreement.

Her co-defendant, Anissa Weier, also 15, reached a similar plea deal earlier this month that will see her remain in mental hospital for three years.

Despite their young age, the girls were initially charged as adults because of the severity of their crime.

After the attack, the teens told police they were headed to see Slender Man at a national forest hundreds of miles (kilometers) away, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The case has been the subject of public fascination, with video of the girls’ police interrogations featured in the 2016 HBO documentary “Beware the Slenderman.”